Lucas called Daniel over to where he, Connor, and Rafe were talking. I figured he was about to send them out on patrol.
"Maybe we can catch up later," Daniel said.
I nodded. "Yeah, sure."
After he walked off, it occurred to me that I needed to introduce him to one of the novices or something. He was new to our area and he needed to expand his circle of friends to more than just me.
I was in the hallway when I ran into Kayla.
"So what did the elders want?" she asked.
"To send me away."
"What do you mean? Like, back to Tarrant?"
Tarrant was the small town near the entrance to the national forest. Most of us had grown up there.
"No, I mean, like to other forests, other areas, places where other Shifters hang out. They think my true mate is out there somewhere just waiting to connect with me."
Her jaw dropped. "Are you serious?"
"Yeah. Whoever heard of matchmaking grandfathers?"
"Maybe they're worried about keeping the species thriving."
I shook my head. "Nah, I think they just finished their Sudoku puzzles for the day and were bored, so they decided to meddle."
"Maybe they care about you."
She made me feel guilty for having unkind thoughts about their attempt to play Cupid. From an early age, we were taught to respect them. But who wanted to be set up by men who'd probably forgotten what it's like to first fall in love?
Looking over my shoulder, I could see through the doorway and into the council room. Connor, Lucas, and Rafe seemed to be engaged in an intense discussion. I had no doubt that the three of them were the most powerful of the Dark Guardians. But Connor held my attention like no one else ever had. Whatever the topic was he cared deeply about it. It was evident in his burning expression. I wished he would look at me with that intensity.
"So you wanna go somewhere and talk?" Kayla asked, dragging my attention away from Connor.
My stomach tightened painfully with the thought of any more interrogation. "About what?"
"I don't know. Girl stuff. Wolf stuff. I'm still adjusting to this whole new lifestyle."
Girl stuff I could handle. Wolf stuff…I wasn't so sure I'd be able to talk about it without giving away that I hadn't actually ever experienced it. "I'm going for a humanlike run."
She might invite herself on a four-legged run, but I'd never seen her jog.
She furrowed her delicate brow. "Do you have to work to stay in shape now that you can shift?"
"I love running on two legs. It can't be beat for an adrenaline rush."
Before she had a chance to debunk my statement—since I figured there was truly no greater rush than what one experienced when shifting—I hurried up the stairs to my room, grateful that she didn't follow. I quickly changed into running shorts and sneakers. Grabbing my iPod, I rushed outside before anyone else could stop me and hit the ground running.
As I settled into the familiar rhythm, my mind drifted to Connor. I should have reached over and taken his hand. Squeezed it. Silently communicated that I was there for him. Where was the strong, bold Brittany who had defied the elders and gone off on her own to face the full moon? Yeah, Connor might not be ready for a relationship, but that didn't mean he couldn't use a friend who did more than drool whenever she was in the same room with him.
I shifted my thoughts to Bio-Chrome and our plan to destroy them. Its lead researcher, Dr. Keane, and his son, Mason, wanted to figure out what made Shifters shift. They wanted to replicate it, create some sort of serum that would allow Statics for a short while to have the capabilities of healing and transforming that Shifters did. But in creating their product, they could very likely ruin everything we had. They wanted to capture a Shifter. We had no guarantee that whoever they captured would survive whatever experiments Bio-Chrome had in mind. But worse, they'd reveal our existence to the world. Even if Kayla was correct and it was time to tell humans that Shifters existed, we needed to be able to do it on our terms—not Bio-Chrome's. I wasn't a hundred percent convinced that Statics were ready to accept the existence of Shifters. Bio-Chrome didn't treat us as though we had rights. When they'd captured Lucas, they'd put him in a cage and tormented him.
They would stop at nothing to gain what they wanted—to have our abilities to shift.
I could relate. I'd waited so long for the arrival of the right moon and now that it had passed I was straining to reach the next one—to see if it made a difference.
But Bio-Chrome would kill to gain what they wanted.
SIX
When I returned from my run, Lucas had posted a listing of the teams. Connor had been put in charge of a team. I wasn't surprised. Lucas depended on him as much as he depended on Rafe. Connor was good at analyzing situations. He wasn't afraid of anything. He'd be a terrific leader. My leader, since I saw my name on the list below his.
A tiny thrill shot through me. We'd be working together in close proximity. I just had to hope that whatever we were assigned to do, we could do it without shifting.
I still had a lot of pent-up energy that needed to be released, so I headed down to the gym. Some time back, the basement of Wolford had been converted into a workout area: two walls of mirrors, two of red brick, and no windows to let in sunlight.
Apparently I wasn't the only one feeling restless. Several guys were lifting weights, including Connor. I received a few nods of acknowledgment, but for the most part my arrival was ignored. I was one of the few girls who'd ever stepped foot in this underground dungeon. Maybe the reason none of the guys had declared me as his mate was because they felt as though I offered competition that none of the other girls did.
I grabbed a towel from the stack by the door and tried to calm my quivering nerves. I'd never been in the gym while Connor was there.
I'd planned to work out with free weights, but the only available bench was beside him, and I just couldn't bring myself to go over there. I headed for the treadmill on the wall perpendicular to the row benches. Connor was no longer in my line of sight. Since I'd just returned from a jog that had left me sweaty, I went straight back into running mode. I turned up the volume on my iPod and got into a rhythm where all my troubles melted away.
A couple of guys stopped to look at me, then returned to what they were doing. As far as I knew, no one gave a flip about an aerobic workout once they were touched by a full moon. After they had the ability to shift, running on all fours was a completely different game. On the brick wall opposite me, someone had slapped a bumper sticker that read, "Real Shifters do it on all fours."